Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: suicide squad

The Year Of Incompetence

We have already established that 2016 is the year that the 20th century dies, Enthusiasts; each day that passes, each paper thumped against the welcome mat, each new though, and every new prayer proves me more and more correct. I would like now to add to our understanding of this terrible year: 2016 is the Year of Incompetence.

Bias! the internet says; and, Rigged! the voters moan; and, Crooked! and Corrupt! and so on, but these accusations are not the truth: incompetence is salted soil from which 2016 grows, gnarled and mean. Trump’s fatal flaw isn’t his arrogance, or racism: these are merely the by-products of deep lack of knowledge about the both the job he’s currently doing (candidate) and the job he says he wants (president). The man does not know what he’s doing, but–and here’s why this is the Year of Incompetence–30-40% of the electorate does not see this as a disqualification.

Here, Enthusiasts, I was going to be fair and balanced and declare Hillary Clinton among the incompetent, as well, but that’s one of the things she’s not; if you tell Hillary Clinton to start a war, and she gets shit done. She goes into meetings with an agenda, keeps to a schedule, remembers not to insult dead soldiers’ mothers: all that base-line stuff you want in a chief executive. In terms of competence, Hillary Clinton is above the Mendoza Line.

The NFL managed to fuck up grass today; yesterday, the Olympics could not handle water. The internet is collectively dumber than a car full of masturbating gibbons. Suicide Squad made $135 million. Dipshittery runs rampant, and–the worst part–has become normalized.

Doesn’t anybody here know how to play this game?

Thoughts On All The Stupid Trailers At Once, Twice

  • I heard Will Smith’s Girls of the World Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble on the 90’s station today, and Will Smith absolutely stole his entire flow from Slick Rick.
  • He is one of the people I have had quite enough of that appear in this film, along with Jared Leto and Jai Courtney.
  • Jai Courtney plays an Australian, with magical boomerangs.
  • The Japanese lady plays a magical samurai with a magical sword.
  • Ugh.
  • Everything about this: ugh.
  • Peak Superhero.
  • “These are the most dangerous people in the world and we don’t know what to do with them.”
  • SHOOT THEM IN THEIR HEADS.
  • If I ran the government agency tasked with dealing with superheros, the standing order would be to execute them on sight.
  • Sure, there are a few like Superman or the Hulk for whom a bullet to the temple would not end the conversation, but the guy who shoots fire from his hands can totally be killed with a gun.
  • “What should we do with this alligator-man?”
  • Shoot him, and if that doesn’t work, go get a bigger gun and shoot him again.
  • “What about the stone-cold fox in hot pants with a bat?”
  • Take away her bat and put her in jail: she is literally just a crazy, hot, crazy-hot woman with a bat.
  • “Are you sure we shouldn’t inject nano-bombs into their spinal cords and then team them up on a do-or-die mission against their wills?”
  • Get out of my office.
  • What the fuck is a Joel Kinnaman, and why should I care?
  • There is a character named Slipknot (not Slipknot!) that has magical ropes and he is played by Adam Beach, who was on Law & Order: SVU for a season or two, and he is a slow-talker; I would actively berate the television screen during his lines.
  • Margot Robbie continues to be preternaturally good at being looked at.
  • All the dudes in the movie are wearing tactical jumpsuits and trenchcoats and bandoliers and pouches and armored vests, whereas Margot Robbie is wearing–as I mentioned–hot pants.

Odds I See This In The Theater I hate everything about this movie so much that I refuse to even give it odds.

  • Wonder Woman has one enormous credit to its name in my book, and that is that Zack Snyder had less to do with it than the other two DC films, and David Goyer had nothing at all to do with it.
  • And while TotD is against purchasing tickets as a strategic act, I am tempted to support all female-lead superhero movies in hopes of getting a She-Hulk movie one day.
  • This is Wonder Woman’s origin story: Chris Pine, who is not Chris Evans in every way, washes up on the shore of a magical island named Themiscyra; only ladies live there.
  • Feel free to make your own sexist joke here.
  • And Wonder Woman is all, “You’re a man!”
  • And Chris Pratt is like, “How do you know?”
  • And Wonder Woman goes, “Because I looked in your pants, Calvin.”
  • And Chris Christofferson goes, “Why did you call me Calvin?”
  • And Wonder Woman goes, “It was written on your underwear.”
  • And so on.
  • Wonder Woman: Israeli ingenue neatly named Gal Gadot.
  • Ridiculous homunculi on the innertubes have complained that the actress does not possess the requisite brawn to portray the heroine, as if Wonder Woman’s strength came from her muscles or something.
  • None of these whiners have mentioned the fact that Wonder Woman was made out of clay and magic is also unrealistic.
  • And then Wonder Woman beats many men up while they shoot at her, and she dances with Chris Cringle while looking glamorous, and for some reason trench warfare gets involved, and then Wonder Woman dons her magical catcher’s leg protectors and wins World War I for Greece, I suppose.
  • The leg protectors are called greaves, and that is a delightful word.
  • The part that goes over your shoulder is called the pauldron.
  • Your forearm is protected by a vambrace.
  • Words are the best.
  • Wonder Woman doesn’t have any of that shit, though: just the shin-guards and a little round shield.
  • (The shield is called an aspis.)
  • And they’ll probably throw some sort of bullshit line about how the greaves extend a magical invulnerability to the wearer and blah blah blah: it’s just there to look bitchin’.
  • Wonder Woman looks totally bitchin’.
  • And this one ends with a joke, but one that fell flat.
  • Chris Handsome and Wonder Woman are standing there with his secretary, and he introduces her, and WW asks the secretary what she does, and the scretary goes, “Whatever Chris Whiteman says,” and Wonder Woman says, “Sounds like a slave to me.”
  • And it’s supposed to be Wonder Woman’s Strong Independent Woman line, but it just makes everyone involved seem like twits.
  • Chris should have responded, “Yeah, except I pay her, and she’s free to go at any time. So, you know: entirely unlike slavery.”
  • To which Wonder Woman would have responded, “I did not go to high school, as I grew up on a legendary lady-island, and am made from clay and magic.”
  • And then secretary might have said, “This is a little on me, guys. Silly way to answer that question. Should’ve said, ‘Performed the tasks required of me by the employer who provides me fair recompense for my services.’ Now, if you want to have a little chat about the systemic patriarchal bullshit laced into the culture of 1917 that dictates that this pretty dumwit be the boss and I, a Vassar-educated woman who speaks three languages, be his secretary? I would LOVE to have that discussion, Wonder Woman. But in all honesty: ix-nay on the ave-slay.”

Odds I See This In The Theater 70%. Will wait for reviews.

  • This is not your daddy’s Aquaman!
  • YeeAHHHHHH!
  • Batman goes to Ye Olde Fishing Village and barges in the bar.
  • “I am here to do two things: look for Aquaman, and chew bubble gum. And I’m all out of bubble gum.”
  • And I guess Aquaman is Thor now, but if Thor were in a Norwegian black metal band.
  • Grrrr.
  • HARDCOREEXTREMEMETALTATTOOS.
  • But he’s still named Arthur, for some reasOHMIGOD I JUST GOT IT because Aquaman is King of the Sea and King Arthur.
  • I truly just got that.
  • And also I think King Arthur is actually in this movie: I guess they’re going to say that Excalibur had something to do with Darkseid and Mother Boxes and all that Jack Kirby/New Gods bullshit?
  • (An aside for the Comic Nerds: the New Gods were fucking stupid. The bad guy was named Darkseid, who was always looking for the Anti-Life Equation, and there was an escape artist named Scott B. Free, and a torturer named DeSaad. Dopey. I will give points for the Boom Tube, which is how you travel through space and time in that particular comic.)
  • But Darkseid’s coming to eat the DC Cinematic Universe, so Batman needs to put together a team of people with actual super-powers.
  • As opposed to Batman, who has 20 billion dollars and PTSD.
  • Although having 20 billion dollars is kind of a super power, in that you can do things mere mortals cannot.
  • No amount of money will give you access to the Speed Force, which is what gives all Flashes their super-speed.
  • I am dumber for having written that sentence; you are dumber for having read it.
  • The Flash is played by the new version of Justin Long, and he is twitchy, and resides in the most “clearly existing in a movie” teenager’s bedroom you’ve ever seen.
  • Graffiti and monitors and half-cannibalized tech and a science lab: I am quite positive he will turn out to be a hacker.
  • To prove Flash is the Flash, Batman throws a stylized razor blade at his face.
  • In the DCCU, the Flash is high-school age, which means Batman broke into a teenager’s bedroom, laid in wait for the youth, and then hucked a knife at him.
  • That’s some good Batmanning, buddy.
  • You’re a hero.
  • God, all those superheros are unbearable.
  • There’s also a black guy, who is a robot,
  • And then the stinger, which is Ben Affleck smirking at Wet Thor, “I hear you talk to fish.”
  • And you can understand what they’re doing here–turning into the skid–but they missed a wonderful opportunity to have Aquaman respond by hurling a beluga whale at Batman’s smug face.
  • SHPLOMPH!

Odds I See This In The Theater Some percent. Definitely a quantifiable percent.

Thoughts On The Suicide Squad Trailer

  • I’ve been doing a bunch of these lately, and I apologize if they bore you, but these superhero movies astound me.
  • So many intelligent and creative people working such long hours to make something so dumb.
  • This is DC’s attempt at a Guardians of the Galaxy-style wacky team-up mixed with a Deadpool-style vulgarity, although I’m sure The Dirty Dozen will be brought up at the press junket.
  • Which makes sense because this is The Dirty Dozen with super-powers and without Telly Savalas and also it doesn’t make sense: the essential premise of the film makes no sense whatsoever.
  • We open on very serious people around a very serious table.
  • “What if Superman ate the President?” one of them asks, kinda.
  • This movie asks us to believe that these serious people around that serious table believe the answer to the problem of Superman is a group of psychopathic metahumans led by a guy who can shoot guns very well.
  • Why don’t you just send Annie Oakley up against the Kryptonian?
  • Don’t get me wrong: Superman will certainly have his hands full fighting a guy with some guns, a woman in hot pants, a crocodile-person, another woman with a sword, and a tattooed fellow who shoots fire from his hands.
  • Fire will stop Superman.
  • And then the first two bad signs in the trailer: Jared Leto does a Joker laugh that you can tell he practiced really hard, and the DC logo appears.
  • I fail to see why we should trust these people any more.
  • Batman Begins was half-good (go back and watch it again); Superman Returns was a bore except for Kevin Spacey; Dark Knight Rises was incomprehensible, self-serious, and slow; Man of Steel was a war crime; you know about my Batman v. Superman boycott.
  • Dark Knight ruled, so that means DC is batting .166; that is below  the Mendoza Line.
  • The team of bad guys is assembled, but under the tightest security: they are all strapped into Hannibal Lecter chairs and brought to an airfield, where they are immediately released and given weapons and explosives while all the soldiers in the area gawk.
  • Margot Robbie is given a longer introduction than the other members of squad due to being preternaturally pleasant to look at.
  • I’m sure she has other talents, but she’s simply incredible at being looked at.
  • In fact, she is so appealing to the eye, that it stymies the higher brain functions that might ask “Why is the woman in the hot pants included in the super-team?”
  • “Not hot pant-shaming here; it’s just that she has no super-powers. She has a bat. I know there’s a woman with a sword, but I believe it’s a magic sword. Margot Robbie is just a woman in hot pants with a baseball bat. That describes half the women in Florida. Why is she on the team?”
  • Instead, she’s so pretty that you stop asking dopey questions.
  • Will Smith is playing Deadpool or Deathsmith or Darksmash or Diphthong or something like that: he shoots guns.
  • That’s it.
  • Second Amendment Hawkeye, basically.
  • He is the leader of the team because he is Will Smith.
  • Although, to be honest: you can’t make the crocodile-person the leader of the team.
  • During the shots of the Suicide Squad getting their weapons, the crocodile-person got a hoodie, and I was happy for him.
  • His skin must dry out in the sun.
  • There is also the previously-mentioned lady with a sword, who has a samurai theme to her costume, and Cara Delevingne, who has a Commes des Garcon theme to her costume.
  • Delevingne is playing the Enchantress, and you can tell from the name that he powers will be completely made up along the way.
  • Scarlet Witch, basically.
  • Jai Courtney is involved in this film; he plays Captain Boomerang.
  • Both clauses of the last sentence are awful.
  • I assume they’re trick boomerangs, but still: fuck you.
  • My patience is virtually nil for the guy with the gun and the woman with the bat, but I simply will not tolerate some doofus hucking Australian backscratchers.
  • Especially if he’s played by Jai Courtney.
  • Tattoo-face shoots the fire from his hands a couple times.
  • Action.
  • Fighting.
  • One-liners.
  • Rockets.
  • Helicopters.
  • Boomerang.
  • And then Batman and the Joker show up.
  • Well, Batman shows up.
  • Jared Leto shows up, and he is appearing as the Joker in this movie.
  • Dunno if Joker shows up.
  • Let’s say this: Jared Leto engages in Jokering.
  • This isn’t your daddy’s Joker, mostly because your daddy’s Joker didn’t make you cringe in embarrassment.
  • Batman is played by Ben Affleck, who has been given all the money in the world by Warner Brothers, and he leaps off of stuff and jumps on things and, in one shot, clings to a speeding car like Shatner in T.J. Hooker.
  • We end where we began: the premise.
  • In a world with super-powered humans, the solution to a problem is never “add more super-powered humans.”
  • You posit a world with super-heroes and villains, and I’ll accept that, but don’t ask me to buy that everyone else is a complete moron.
  • Margot Robbie is a babe.